Books Quarterly: Short Reviews

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• Melissa Roth
• George Frykman
• Charles Wright
• Books and Literature
• Single Life

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Deception is this novel's binding element, the thread that entangles each character. In the first few pages we find the Iranian Col. Massoud Amir Behrani laboring, without his family's knowledge, for a San Francisco road crew in order to uphold appearances so that his daughter can marry well; Kathy is jarred from her denial when she is evicted from her bungalow. As the story progresses, deception envelops and shifts, like the two substances in the title, becoming a torment to Behrani and an inescapable trap for Kathy and Lester. Behrani's unshakable determination to reach the legendary zone of the American good life and the couple's personal and cultural malaise destroy their ability to resolve the tragic misunderstanding that first united them. Dubus has written a book full of longing, a vivid and exquisitely realized snapshot of America's underside.

Rebecca Robinson